Tuition Treachery (See Update Below)?In July 2008, we compared the college tuition costs for several universities between 1960 and 2007. They all showed huge increases in CPI adjusted tuition. In an attempt to understand the reason for the huge tuition increases, we were able to inspect the budgets for the University of Texas for both the 1960 and for 2008. To try to provide the most equal comparison, the values were adjusted to per student values. The enrollment for UT was listed as 18,000 in 1960 and UT's most recent enrollment figure is 49,697. It was very difficult to equalize the categories but every effort was made to make fair comparisons. The author welcomes a more detailed analysis by anyone with more resources.
Referenced links:1960 Budget Summary - 2008 Budget Summary2009 UT Tuition Costs - UT Grant Programs

Editor's Analysis:
The analysis shows that the expenses for the University of Texas have gone up roughly twice the rate of inflation but not nearly at the rate of change in the published tuition rates. It is to UT's credit that they appear to have reduced expenses for operating the campus buildings and grounds. It appears that teaching expenses have gone up but not nearly as fast as the administrative overhead expenses.

What is very troubling is the mismatch between the published tuition rate and what is actually shown to be collected either directly or through state financial aid. In reviewing the grants shown in the financial aid web page, it shows that they offer tuition-funded University Tuition (UT) Grants and also offer Tuition Credits. I was not able to find in the budget any information on the UT Grants or the Tuition Credits but it appears that if someone is paying full tuition, they are not only covering the tuition for themselves but also at least one other student.

Although this is an analysis of just one university, it has been reported that other universities also play games with the tuition where the universities decide how much of their overly-inflated tuition a family can afford and then "give" financial aid to make up the difference. It is a system ripe for favoritism and fraud. It has no place in public universities.

UT Tuition Update In the 2009 Texas legislative session, SB1304 was passed and signed into law. It requires all state universities starting in January 2010 to disclose on their tuition bills, how much of the tuition is being used to fund other students tuition. Texas law still mandates that the universities divert at least 20% of undergraduate tuition to fund tuition grants and loans.

Medicare/Medicaid Is Bleeding Us DryPresident Obama recently presented his proposed budget (2010) that included multi-year projections for revenue and outlays for the Medicare and Medicaid programs under current law per the economic assumptions by the Obama administration.

Editor's Analysis:
The budget shows that the Medicare tax has not come even close to covering the Medicare benefits for even the current year and it only gets worse as the Baby-Boomers are scheduled to retire. If you include the Medicare program, the current year's funding deficit is over $4,000 per average household and only gets worse in the coming years. This funding deficit, starting in 2012 and forward is approximately equal to the total projected Federal Budget deficit.

Scaling data down to your family.
When articles talk of millions and billions of dollars, it is hard to comprehend unless it is scaled down to the level of our family's (household) finances.

Both sides of an issue presented in an un-biased bullet (PowerPoint) format that allows you to quickly get both sides of a controversial subject.